Thp: Canadian Horticulturist. ,]2i 



evidence to prove that " the second crop of apple trees cannot be grown 

 successfully on the same ground." 



Here is my experience with the latter. The soil I have to deal with is 

 a marl with a clay sub soil. I cleared away the old orchard, the trees 

 were large, one in particular was three feet in diameter, spreading its limbs 

 from one side to the other— fifty feet. I cleared the roots so as not to be 

 touched by the plough. The manure I have used is barnyard and ashes. 

 Thirteen years last spring I planted the ground with Duchess of Oldenbury 

 and Wagener apple trees. The Wageners have not done well. They give 

 me full crops of fine fruit, but the trees are unhealthy and are dying out. 

 This variety does not succeed in any soil in this locality. The Duchess has 

 done well, and presents an appearence in growth, quality and quantity of 

 fruit not to be surpassed. This year from fifty-three trees we picked 

 and shipped 146 barrels of No i fruit. We sold to a house in Winnipeg, 

 at $3.00 per barrel here. Sixty Duchess were planted twenty feet apart 

 each way. Three trees had no fruit this year, and four had been replaced 

 with other varieties. 



If Ontario can produce a finer orchard, growth of wood, quality and 

 quantity of fruit, I would like to see it. Many of the limbs and two of the 

 trees were broken down with fruit. 



Bedner^ilk. W. R. DEMPSEY. 



HON. JOHN DRYDEN, THE PRESENT MINISTER OF 

 AGRICULTURE. 



THROUGH the courtesy of the Farmers' Advocate, we are enabled to give 

 our readers an excellent engraving of our new Minister of Agriculture, the 

 Hon. John Dryden, of Brooklin, Ont. Since our Association exists under 

 the patronage of the Department of Agriculture, it is of especial interest to us to 

 know who is at the head of it, and whether he is a gentleman interested in the 

 progress of our work. We have reason to believe that the interests of the gar- 

 dener and of the fruit grower will not be less carefully fostered by the present 

 minister than under his able predecessor, the Hon. Charles Drury. 



Mr. John Dryden was born in the year 1840, in the township of Whitl)y, and 

 received his education at the High School of the town of the same name. 1 K 

 was a very bright student, and completed his studies with great credit. 



The same ambition to excel which characterized him as a student seems to 

 have marked his course as a practical farmer, for his path has been one of con- 

 stant progress and acknowledged success. At first renting his father's farm of 

 two hundred and thirty acres, and paying the rent annually as long as his 



